<p>“One mother has no regrets about helping her daughters win places at medical school. . . and is now sharing her secrets” . Obviously we in the UK are a bit behind you when it comes to involvement in the application process - this mother’s efforts to help her daughters get into medicine (an undergraduate course here) provoked enormous hostility when it was published last September (“How I won the Uni War” in The Daily Mail). Thought this transatlantic story might amuse CC parents and the points she references in the first article would be helpful to anyone whose students are looking at Oxbridge in particular.</p>
<p>Okay, it’s a bit over the top to volunteer at the same hospital at the same time your kids are, but other than that, it doesn’t sound like this mother was all that pushy. The coaching to help with the interviews ---- doesn’t everyone do that? My knowledge of this topic comes only from the movie “The History Boys,” but didn’t those young men have an entire class and teacher dedicated to coaching them into their top-college acceptances? Isn’t that how it’s done by and large?</p>
<p>The History Boys is a bit of a historical document as it is set in the 1980s and the UK education system seems to have reinvented itself several times since then (and is apparently on the verge of yet another radical tansformation …). Anyway, the ‘history boys’ were taking an extra term (a ‘crammer’) as they had done so well in their A-levels that they’d come back to their grammar school specifically to prepare for the Oxford exam (no longer given although subject exams are being reintroduced.) I thought that nothing that this woman did would be considered exceptional by any involved US parent…and her main point in her first article - after her son was rejected from Oxford - centred on her realization that there are ‘ways to maximize the impact of an application’ - which would hardly be news to any CC parent - or to a parent at any of the public (ie private) schools here. Her book seems an attempt to demystify the process. There are only two other books I know of like this here: “Oxbridge: The real Rules” and “Tell me about a banana” (supposedly a ‘typical’ interview question.) Can college consultants be far behind?!</p>
<p>Ah! The Americanization of the world. Perhaps a McConsultant or Mcsultant will one day be a universal brand with arches and standarized packages.</p>
<p>I agree that sadly, this woman’s behavior is not outrageous. Mock interviews, paying for test preparations, and securing volunteer jobs are hardly extreme by today’s standards. I didn’t quite understand why the mother chose to work at the hospital, too, though. The only thing upsetting about the article was the mother’s self-righteous, rather smug attitude.</p>